


Things I Never Told You

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek is bad at words, Happy Ending, Insecure Derek, Insecure Stiles, M/M, Past Braeden/Derek Hale, Past Derek Hale/Paige, Past Jennifer Blake/Derek Hale, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Post-Nogitsune, Stiles is angry, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 14:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12559872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: “I never want to see you again!”--Stiles and Derek have a fight. There's no way to fix it this time.--Read the tags.





	Things I Never Told You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frownypup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frownypup/gifts).



> Beta read by the fantastic and lovable [ Red](https://imyoursourwolf.tumblr.com/)!!
> 
> Any remaining mistakes are my own.

\--

“I never want to see you again!”

Stiles froze, the words hanging in the air between them. He wanted desperately to take them back because surely he didn’t mean them. But he did or he wouldn’t have said them. Right?

Derek stared back at him, face carefully blank, his hurt buried deep. It only made Stiles madder because he couldn’t be the only one with too many emotions bubbling up inside his chest, choking him, killing him.

After a long moment of silence, Derek blinked. “I love you,” he said softly, seemingly surprised by the confession, as well he should be. In three years of dating, that was the first time he had ever said the words out loud. “I will always love you.” Then, he turned and walked away.

And Stiles let him go because in that moment, he seized his breaking heart and summoned enough rage to scream, “I hate you!” at Derek’s retreating back.

That was almost a week ago. Now, Stiles stood on his dad’s front porch, gaping at the yard full of flowers that someone (a certain werewolf to be sure) had sent him.

Stiles did not recall exactly what they started fighting over, perhaps the dirty socks Derek liked to leave in the corners of rooms to “mark his territory”, but it was definitely Derek’s fault entirely and he had a lot more groveling to do than just sending potential allergens to Stiles’ door.

The fight may have started small, but it had quickly morphed into Stiles detailing everything he did for their relationship while Derek did nothing. Of course, Stiles knew Derek did things, but they were few and far between.

Stiles was furious. Derek did not get to spend hundreds of fucking dollars apologizing for something he was unwilling to fix.

With fury burning in his blood, Stiles marched out into the thicket of flowers and started throwing them toward the street.

His dad pulled up just as Stiles was done sweeping the offending flora into a garbage bag.

“Derek tried to apologize?” he asked mildly, passing Stiles on his way to the house. Stiles huffed out an annoyed breath.

“If you consider apologizing to be littering your entire front yard with trashy flowers.”

“Not even a card?”

Stiles paused. Had there been a card? He looked around the yard. If there was one, it was certainly in the trash bag now and there was no way that Stiles was digging through that mess.

“No,” he told his dad. Because Dad was still human despite everyone’s best offers, he couldn’t hear the way Stiles’ heart tripped.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Dad, I’m sure. What does it matter anyway? Derek and I had a fight. He needs to apologize to me.”

Dad’s gaze swept the yard, catching on a few straggling blooms and stems. “Pretty sure this was an apology,” he drawled.

Stiles glared at him.

Then he stomped upstairs to his room, making sure to slam the door as hard as he could.

 

\--

The next day on his way to work as a supernatural consultant for the Beacon County Sheriff’s Department, Stiles found the inside of his Jeep covered in a mountain of petals. Fake petals, each with a single letter written on it.

What the fuck.

No one had time to reassemble this monstrosity. So, he grabbed his dad’s shop vac and sucked away the mess.

He purposefully ignored Derek lurking by the tree line, watching him with a blank expression.

Stiles made sure to loudly complain to his father that Derek wasn’t even trying to apologize.

“You know that’s not true,” Dad said. “For Derek, this is trying. Hell, for anyone this would count.”

In retaliation, Stiles threw a handful of the petals onto his dad’s desk. And then promptly was made to look a fool when he dad showed him that the backs had numbers.

“Whatever,” Stiles scoffed, unwilling to admit that he was turning out to be in the wrong. He wanted to hold onto his righteous anger for a few days longer. Besides, if Derek was insistent on “apologizing,” well, who was Stiles to stop him?

 

\--

The next few days, Stiles woke up to his dad drinking a travel mug of coffee that hadn’t been brewed in the house, not that Stiles could smell anyway. His suspicions were confirmed when he found the electric coffee urn sitting in the sink, waiting to be rinsed out and returned.

Stiles glared. He’d bought Derek that urn two years ago as a gag Christmas gift and then had been pleasantly surprised by Derek’s ability to brew fantastic coffee.

Figured that he’d try using it to win Stiles back. Well, joke’s on him. Dad drank it all, not him. So all Stiles had to do was take the still-dirty urn to the end of the driveway, write a very loving “Fuck you!” on it and wait for Derek to come collect it.

If he camped out as long as he could waiting for Derek to show his face, then that was his own business, and Mrs. Johnson, a widowed busybody with nothing better to do than wait at her window for gossip, could suck it.

Derek hadn’t stopped by before Stiles had to go to work.

Stiles spent the whole day waiting for something, he wasn’t sure what, to happen. He was mildly disappointed when he returned to his dad’s house and the urn was gone.

Stiles poked at the little burn of anger in his chest, adding kindling as he bustled about the kitchen, looking for his dad’s secret stash of Oreos.

If he were at Derek’s and his house, he’d already have a bag in hand, and Derek would be pouring him a glass of milk.

Instead, because Derek refused to allow three little words in his vocabulary until it was monumentally too late, Stiles was cranky and cookie-less and more than ready to yell at the next person who crossed his path.

Who just happened to be Derek.

“I thought we could talk,” Derek said, standing in the corner of the kitchen.

“How long have you been there?” Stiles demanded.

“Can we talk? Without all the screaming and lying?” Derek held out the bag of Oreos and Stiles snatched it, stuffing three in his mouth at once.

“No,” he said through a mouthful of crumbs. “I’ve said everything I’ve ever wanted to you.”

“Lie,” Derek responded easily, grabbing a cookie for himself despite Stiles’ best efforts to protect the package. Derek turned the cookie around and around in his hands, picking at it until it was nothing but dust and sugar glue.

“Fine. You know how hard it is for me to say the right thing.” True. At least ninety percent of their fights before now had been because Derek said something and Stiles misinterpreted his words—mostly because Derek was so bad at choosing the words he wanted to use. “Well, I’m trying. I really am. I don’t want to lose you because I can’t say what you need to hear.” Stiles watched Derek clench his hands. “What I’m trying to say now is that I love you.”

It would be endearing, Stiles thought, if Derek didn’t immediately turn red and stomp toward the door.

“So that’s it?” Stiles picked up another cookie, contemplating it. He really needed some milk, but he didn’t want to go to the fridge, grab the carton, and turn around to find Derek had escaped. “Is that all you have to say right now?”

“What else is there to say?” Derek paused, hand on the doorknob. His shoulders were tense, the line of his back rigid. “I love you. I don’t say the words because it makes my stomach feel awful, but it’s true. You need to hear it, and I. I need to say it.  More. A lot more.”

“If you really love me, turn around. Tell me to my face.”

Derek spun around, and his face…his face was blotchy, like he was trying to keep from crying. Like telling Stiles that he loved him was the worst thing to happen to him.

Like it made more than his stomach feel awful.

“Get out,” Stiles said tiredly, unable and unwilling to deal with this added layer of bullshit. “You said your piece, now leave.”

He stuck his head in the fridge and rummaged for a good five minutes before looking at where Derek had been.

He was gone.

Stiles didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

 

\--

After what Stiles was now calling the cookie-clusterfuck, he heard nothing from Derek. No flowers, no messages written on petals, no coffee. Nothing. It made for a very boring week.

So, he was kind of glad when his phone rang just as he was getting ready to head into work.

Stiles answered the call, expecting to hear his boyfriend on the phone, finally destressing from whatever the hell last week was. Instead, he got Scott.

“Stiles, where are you?” Scott asked.

It felt a little like disappointment if Stiles was honest.

“I’m at my dad’s,” Stiles said. The same place he’d been since he and Derek started fighting. It wasn’t like this was news to Scott.

“Get to the preserve. There’s something wrong out here and we’ll need your expertise.”

Ah, there it was. “Scott, buddy, you know I know that Derek just made you ask me to get me there. It’s okay. You can tell him no. It’s not like he can do anything about it since he’s not the alpha.”

“It’s not related to Derek at all,” Scott snapped. “And just for the record, I think you’re both being idiots and I refuse to take a side in your argument.”

Stiles made an affronted noise to silence. Scott hung up on him. The bastard.

Well, if they needed Stiles’ expertise, they would get his expertise. On the safe side, Stiles tucked a pouch of mountain ash into his pocket and grabbed the dried wolfsbane his dad kept as a reminder to the wolves that he could take them all down.

 

\--

Of course it would be a dark spark. Not quite a dark druid and not quite a happy little spark like Stiles was supposed to be. (He had no evidence of this except his fortuitous ability to carry mountain ash and cultivate wolfsbane.)

Stiles glared at the monster trying to resurrect the Nemeton for nefarious purposes. Wasn’t that what they all tried to do? This one was just a little more Hollister and Hot Topic than Stiles was used to. The dark spark was a young man with long bangs dyed bright blue and stretched-out, gauged earlobes. Stiles thought he even saw a nose ring glinting from one nostril. His clothing was definitely on the pricey, teenage side of things and cleaner than expected, especially because he had been out here for a week already, according to the CliffsNotes version Mason was murmuring to Liam.

“This is protected land,” Scott said, in his I-am-the-True-Alpha-voice. The one that Stiles assured him was oh-so-intimidating and then privately mocked because there was no way Scott could ever intimidate anything.

And of course, the dark spark took their presence to be a threat and startled hurling curses and landscape at them.

“I hope you know that I still hate you,” Stiles said when Derek took his customary position of just to Stiles’ right.

“And I hope you know that I do love you, even if I don’t say it enough,” Derek returned, voice even, inflection bitten off.

Stiles frowned at him. “Now, see, that’s what I have a problem with,” he pointed out. “You can say you love me all you like, but you never sound like you mean it.”

Derek sighed and rolled his shoulders. “I’ll work on how I say things and actually say them, but now is not the time.”

“Fine,” Stiles huffed. “I still hate you.”

“And I still love you.”

Stiles did not bother to respond, turning instead to focus on the dark spark.

Shit like this was why Stiles wanted to leave Beacon Hills, but the damn town had planted a tether in each of them. Even Derek, who kept leaving while they were all at college, kept finding himself being pulled back. The longest any of them had been gone was Derek for four years while he helped his sister establish a new pack after the one she was living with was murdered.

Stiles did not begrudge Derek his many disappearances, especially since he had stopped leaving town since they’d gotten together. But, he did resent the fact that Derek never once offered to run away with him.

Now here they were, facing a dark spark while Stiles wondered if he was breaking up with his boyfriend.

Maybe that’s why he missed it when the dark spark tossed a whole tree at his head.

Derek yelled something, and Stiles half-turned to see what bit his ass when Derek slammed into him. Stiles hit the ground hard, rolling over and scrambling away again.

Behind him, he heard Derek coughing, and suddenly it sounded wet.

He whipped around to find Derek pinned to the ground, one of the smaller branches broken off and impaled through his chest.

“Stiles? Stiles?” Derek panted. Eyes unfocused, he scanned the battleground for him. As Stiles watched, blood frothed on his lips, and his skin paled.

Something clenched in Stiles’ chest and his feet stuck themselves to the ground. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening. Derek sighed, long and sad, and stopped. Moving, breathing, everything.

Stiles was aware of someone screaming in anguish, pain so deep it burned through the ground like roots.

And then, he ran out of air and realized that he was the one making the noise.

“Stiles! Stop!” Scott yelled, hands on either side of Stiles’ face, eyes blazing red as he shouted and alpha-ed his way into Stiles’ head.

As soon as Stiles calmed enough to close his mouth, Scott shoved him at Lydia. “Get him out of here. Now.”

Liam and Mason helped Lydia lead him away, and no matter how he twisted in their grip, he couldn’t break free.

He fought for a breath, and then shuddered hard as it felt like his chest broke open, and he started crying, choking on the words.

Lydia said nothing, but her eyes held a level of understanding that Stiles never wanted to see.

 

\--

Lydia kept calling Stiles, and Stiles kept ignoring her calls. Then he would delete the messages she left without listening to them.

Nothing she could say would bring Derek back. Nothing could unsay all the hateful things he had yelled at Derek.

Dad brought the flower petals by on one of his visits, leaving them sorted on the table, glued to a poster board. Stiles could go read the message of apology and love that Derek had left him anytime he wanted.

He didn’t want to.

He spent all his time either in the bed or curled in the closet, breathing in Derek’s scent, woody and tempered with something salty like the ocean. The only way Stiles could sleep was wrapped in one of Derek’s shirts, clinging to Derek’s pillow.

 

\--

_Stiles sat up, waving a hand in front of his face to disperse the cobwebs he felt clinging to his skin. Beside him, Derek huffed loudly._

_“Wolfsbane,” he clarified, when Stiles shot him an annoyed glare. “It’s always wolfsbane.”_

_“Well that’s your fault, Mr. Wolf,” Stiles retorted. Derek’s face pinched, like it sometimes did when he was thinking too hard._

_“You know not everything is my fault,” he said, sadly._

_Stiles laughed. “I know.”_

_“Then stop saying that. You hurt me when you blame me. When we fight and you always assume it’s my fault, you won’t apologize, and you won’t let me apologize. Then you always say you hate me but I can never hate you, so I don’t know why you always do—”_

 

Stiles woke up alone.

 

\--

“Hey, kiddo,” his dad said, nearly a week after the fight with the dark spark. His dad had swung by the house after his shift to see him, and hadn’t left yet despite Stiles refusing to talk to him. He didn’t want to say something else he regretted.

He could still feel the echo of hatred on his lips whenever he thought of Derek.

“I brought you some soup.” Dad set the thermos down on the night stand, moving one of Derek’s books to make room. Stiles grabbed his wrist and squeezed. His dad looked at him in understanding and moved the book back.

“Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this,” Dad sat down, patting next to Stiles’ legs, like he knew he couldn’t handle being touched right now, “but you need to take care of yourself. It’s what you need to do.”

Stiles almost broke his vow of silence to say, “Like you did after Mom?” But he doesn’t because neither of them need that hurt.

“Listen,” Dad said again, “Cora is coming into town tomorrow. She’s going to want answers. If you don’t want to see her, we understand, but maybe you should talk to her.”

Stiles didn’t care. Nothing Cora could say or do would bring Derek back. Nothing she could say or do would undo the vitriol spewed at the man Stiles knew without a doubt that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. If only he’d had that revelation before the dark spark had taken Derek away from him.

Dad sighed, standing up. “I love you, Stiles. And I know Derek did too. Please eat something.”

Stiles glared at his hands instead of responding. Of course Derek loved him. Stiles could see that now. And maybe Derek could have said it a little sooner, but Stiles also felt he could have backed off a bit.

Whatever.

His head and his heart still hurt and seeing Cora wasn’t going to fix that. Neither was his dad’s soup. Stiles closed his eyes, willing himself to drift off.

 

\--

_This time, Derek was perched on the edge of the bed, leaning down, like he’d just kissed Stiles’ forehead. He sometimes did that when he had to work early._

_“Miss me?”_

_Stiles stretched out, reaching for Derek. “No,” he lied, grinning when Derek cocked his head, knowing he heard his heart speed up. Derek crawled across the bed, moving fluidly. Stiles waited patiently, but it seemed as if Derek wasn’t making any progress._

_“Stop playing and come here,” Stiles commanded._

_“Stiles, I’m cold,” Derek said, pausing. Stiles should have felt his weight on his legs. Instead, he felt his heart seize._

_“Cold?”_

_Derek nodded, his eyes glazing over, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “And alone. Stiles, where are you?”_

 

Stiles woke up alone.

 

\--

Another week passed, and Stiles actually was out of bed—mostly because it stunk like his sweat instead of like Derek and he was washing the sheets and trying not to cry about the fact that he’d accidentally dropped Derek’s favorite mug this morning. The pieces in the garbage mocked him mercilessly as he sat on the washer eating reheated soup from a mixing bowl.

Dishes. Laundry. A shower. Stiles wandered listlessly through the house, fingers trailing over the photographs Derek liked to decorate with. Pictures of pack. Of Stiles and Scott when they were five and smashing each other’s sandcastles. A photo of Erica from Eight Grade graduation. Boyd’s JROTC roster head shot.

One of Stiles with Derek behind him, arm over one shoulder, his chin hooked over the other. Stiles could sometimes still feel the weight and heat of Derek against his back, the sharp point of his chin as it dug into his flesh. He remembered then that Lydia had taken that picture after their first date. Something to mark the occasion, she’d said.

Stiles slid the frame off the wall and carried it back to the bed where he sat, studying Derek’s face, looking for a hint of the lens flare. But Derek’s eyes were lidded, turned away from the camera because he was trying to whisper in Stiles’ ear. Something Stiles couldn’t remember now, but had made him feel very loved. Where had that feeling gone?

Very carefully, Stiles set the picture down on the night stand. He lifted his hands up and watched at the way they shook.

Derek’s funeral was tomorrow. They couldn’t put it off any longer. Not when Cora was being pressured to return to her new pack. Stiles still didn’t know if he was going. The dreams of Derek were getting worse, and he wasn’t sure he could handle seeing Derek lying peacefully in a casket.

Stiles jumped to his feet and started pacing, hands fisted in his hair.

It was so much easier to climb into bed and just let sleep calm him, but the dreams. The dreams made it unbearable. To see Derek, to hear him, every night, only to wake and find that his arms were still empty.

No. Stiles wouldn’t, couldn’t, go to the funeral. If he did, they’d be burying two bodies.

Stiles growled, fingers itching with the need to throw something, to break things and smash and destroy. To break down and actually grieve.

His dad was right. Stiles needed to take care of himself.

To do that, maybe he should box up Derek’s stuff? Wait for Cora to hunt him down and forcibly take what she thought she was entitled to?

He had his dad and Scott to thank that Cora hadn’t already stormed his house.

Stiles knew, though, the moment he found something of Derek’s that Cora wanted, he’d want it too, even if it was just a dirty sock.

He growled in frustration, kicking at anything in reach. He smashed his foot against the corner of the bed and howled in pain, limping away to throw himself into the corner nook where Derek liked to read on rainy days.

As he massaged his injury—thankfully just a bruise and not something worse—he noticed that a compartment on the bed had opened.

Pain forgotten for a moment, Stiles approached the bed carefully. Who knows what Derek might have hidden in there? Stiles tamped down the flame of anger that Derek _had_ hidden something. They didn’t have secrets from each other. Not anymore.

Except, apparently, Derek had kept something from Stiles. A whole box of letters, all addressed to “My Love.” Stiles scoffed, picking one up. Derek wasn’t romantic. His nicknames for Stiles were the same as they always had been—and Stiles refused to acknowledge that his names for Derek hadn’t changed at all either.

Were these letters for Paige, Derek’s first love? Kate? Stiles shuddered at the thought. Jennifer? Just as repulsive as Kate. Braeden, then. Stiles threw the letter down unopened.

Just because Derek was dead didn’t mean he had the right to read these letters. Maybe later, when the sting was gone, when it didn’t rip his chest open and flay his heart that Stiles wasn’t Derek’s love.

Underneath the letters, a small, smooth box, carved from an amber-colored wood rattled. Stiles lifted it gently, turning it over in his hands. It was meticulous, every detail perfect and polished to a high shine. On either side of the hinges were round dimples that depressed easily.

The box sprang apart, the lid lifting to reveal a pair of rings, simple with a Celtic weave and the triskelion mark of the Hale family, set in midnight-blue velvet wadding. Peeking from beneath a corner of the wadding was a folded square of paper.

On the front of it, Stiles’ name. Not his nickname or any other pet name Derek liked to call him but his birth name, his mother-given name.

The box set aside, Stiles unfolded the paper, smoothing it out on his leg. Derek’s surprisingly neat script filled the page, words. Words that Derek had said, and taught himself to say apparently. Addressed at the very top, not to any of his previous lovers and not to Stiles himself either. Instead, the first line read, “My love, how I long to tell you this in person.”

Stiles stopped breathing.

Did Derek mean to only give this to Stiles when he died? Only meant to confess the depth of his love and caring after he was already gone? And did that mean that all those other “My Love” letters were really for Stiles too?

He gasped, air stuttering into his lungs. He dropped the letter, reaching into the box of letters again and pulling one out.

It wasn’t even sealed.

The letter, definitely addressed to Derek’s love described what it felt to come home to a “quirked smile, a raised brow, a challenge in both tongue and wit. Would that this feeling of exuberance that you, my love, my _love_ , could always be here to let me know that I am not yet broken, that my heart still beats for a worthy cause, for your love, my love, my Stiles.”

An ugly sob broke out of Stiles’ chest, tearing with it a flood of tears and regret for how things had ended.

He gently placed the letter back in its envelope and put the envelope back in the box. He refolded the note and tucked it back in the bottom of the ring box.

He set the rings back inside the wadding, cramming it in, not as elegantly as Derek had done, but then, Derek was no longer here to fix it, and that brought a new pain forward. Stiles clutched the ring box to his chest and crawled onto the bed, muffling his cries in Derek’s pillows, sobbing harder at the fading scent of him.

 

\--

_Instead of the usual room he found Derek in, Stiles was in the center of the lacrosse field. It was too dark to make out anything beyond Stiles’ own hands, but he could sense the presence of others. He spun around in circles, searching the sidelines._

_Then, the lights clicked on, illuminating the circle where he stood. Someone outside of the light was blowing a whistle, and next to him, Derek, shifted into his beta form, growled low and dangerous._

_“What’s going on?” Stiles asked. “What do you see?”_

_Derek turned, eyes red, fading into blue, going yellow, and then red again. Alpha, beta, omega. “Move,” he said around his fangs, shoving Stiles with a clawed hand._

_Stiles stared at the ring on Derek’s finger, quickly glancing down to see that he had the matching one on his hand. “We’re married?”_

_“Move, Stiles, go, run,” Derek snapped. The whistling stopped and the dark spark stepped into the light. Derek growled again, lunging and stopping, as if chained._

_The dark spark laughed. “He’s a fighter, isn’t he? It’s why I chose him.”_

_“Chose him for what?”_

_“I chose you too, you know.” The dark spark laughed. He snapped his fingers, and Derek broke free, smashing through the kid’s body and dispersing him like smoke. And then he kept going, swallowed up by the darkness._

_“Derek?” Stiles called. “Derek! Come back!”_

 

\--

When he blinked his eyes open, Stiles thought he was still dreaming. He was back in the preserve. He still had the box with him, and he was barefoot, like he’d been in the house, but the forest floor beneath him was soft, loamy, with bits of branches and rocks poking through.

It felt real.

He stood up, scanning the area around him, realizing that he was back in the clearing where the dark spark had lured them. If he concentrated, he could just make out the tree where Derek had died.

The ground in front of it was disturbed, bloody handprints trailing over the base of the tree. Stiles approached it carefully, not sure what he would find on the other side of the tree.

He was not expecting to find Derek sitting there, legs stretched out in front of him, staring blankly at the space between the trees.

A small sound escaped Stiles’ throat, and Derek’s head snapped up, eyes focusing on his face.

“Stiles,” Derek breathed. He made no move to stand up, and Stiles noticed that his hand was pressed to his chest where the branch had punched through him. Blood tainted his fingers, but Stiles didn’t think it was wet.

What a weird dream.

“Derek,” he said finally, realizing that he’d let the silence grow.

Derek smiled, a painful stretch of lips that did nothing to quell the queasiness Stiles felt rising in his stomach. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too.” Stiles shuffled closer, tucking the box against his side as he leaned down to…to do what he wasn’t sure. Probably kiss his dream-boyfriend’s head.

Derek jerked back, eyes wide. “You found it?” he gasped.

Puzzled, Stiles glanced down, following Derek’s line of sight to the box. “Yeah, it was an accident. But I’m glad I did.”

“I am too.” Derek cleared his throat. “I guess now you know just how much I loved you. I know I’m…I was bad at saying it, but I’d hoped…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I just wanted you to know how much I do love you.”

He paused to cough, and Stiles was alarmed to see blood on his lips. The blood on his hand looked wet again.

“No, no, this isn’t real. You can’t die again. Not before we talk.” Stiles’ eyes burned with tears. He stuttered over his breaths, dropping to his knees so he could press his hand over Derek’s. “Don’t die again.” It was just a dream he reminded himself. A way for him to get closure with Derek even after death.

“I know I’m not making it out of here,” Derek said, with far too much calm for it to be a stray thought. “I just…Can I have one last kiss before I die?”

Stiles shook his head, leaning back but keeping pressure on Derek’s wound. “You’ve spent so long hiding your feelings for me that you can’t just pretend we’ll be okay. If you die, then I lose you forever. What’s one more kiss to an eternity without you?”

Derek reached for him then, fingers cold and shaking. “Please, Stiles, I love you. I always have. Please. Just let me have one more moment. Just to show you how much I love you.”

“You haven’t shown you loved me at all.” Stiles snorted, feeling sickened by the coldness rising in him. Derek didn’t need to. Show how much he loved him. He already had. What was happening?

“I do love you,” Derek insisted. “Why do you always assume I don’t? I love you so much, more than anything or anyone that I’ve ever loved before. Why won’t you love me back?”

To Stiles’ horror, Derek faded a little more, the wispy smoke trailing through his arm where it hung between them.

Startled, shocked and frankly hurt, Stiles said, “I do love you.”

“Then why do you keep telling me that you hate me?” Derek blinked harshly, tears glittering on his lashes.

Stiles replayed all the past fights, all the times he walked away from Derek screaming that he hated him, always responding with anger and disbelief whenever Derek did manage to apologize in his awkward way. And something snapped inside, the cold breaking away, letting heat pulse and grow in his chest.

“Derek, I do love you. _I do_. And I don’t know why I ever said I hated you. You never deserved that.”

Derek laughed mirthlessly. “I deserve a lot of things,” he said. “But, you’re right: no one deserves to have someone they love tell them they hate them.” He paused to wipe away a fallen tear, continuing in a choked whisper, “Especially not when they say that more than that they love them.”

“I haven’t done that,” Stiles protested.

Derek shook his head. “Stiles, you’ve told me that you hate me at least twenty times in this past month alone. All it took for you to say you loved me was for me to die.”

The flowers on his dad’s lawn, the petals. The fucking urns of coffee. And each one returned to Derek with a loud, heartfelt, true-at-the-time “I hate you.”

No wonder Derek didn’t believe him now. Stiles wouldn’t believe himself now either.

“Shit,” he said. “Oh my God. Oh, fuck. I’ve been punishing you for not saying it when I haven’t been saying it either. I’m such an idiot.”

Derek huffed a laugh, sighing and closing his eyes. “We’re both idiots,” he said. “I could have tried harder when I was alive.”

“You asshole,” Stiles said, fond if exasperated. “I’m trying to apologize to you, and you’re making it all about you.”

Derek growled. “You just spent God knows how long punishing me for not saying ‘I love you’ the way you wanted to hear it. How is this not about me? Do you even know what you’re holding?”

Stiles lifted the box, examining it. “You wrote a note,” he said, depressing the sides so that it popped open, showing the rings inside. “Your parents’, you said.”

“I needed your ring size before I could ask,” Derek said softly. “I was going to ask the night you stormed off.”

“It’s,” Stiles began, and then noticed that his phone was ringing.

By the time he fumbled it out of his pocket and answered it, he realized that wasn’t in the preserve anymore…if he ever had been.

Another dream? But, when he sat on the bed the soles of his feet were dirty, like he’d been outside recently.

Not a dream then?

“Stiles?” Scott’s voice sounded tinny, far away and buzzed with static. “Stiles, we need you now. It’s Derek.”

 

\--

Stiles couldn’t remember the drive down to the morgue. He still couldn’t recall how he got from his and Derek’s bedroom to the hospital’s basement, waiting for the crusty old man who kept the keys to shuffle from his office all the way to the drawer where Derek’s body had been for the past two weeks.

All he knew was his dad and Melissa were guarding the corridor while Scott, Lydia, Cora, Liam, and Mason were gathered inside. Mason held a canister of mountain ash, just as a precaution, Scott told Cora when she growled at it.

Scott put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder as soon as Stiles skidded into the room, and he hadn’t moved it yet, fingers gripping tightly while Stiles’ breath whistled in and out, edging closer to full blown panic.

Derek. Was. Alive.

At least, that’s what Scott had said on the phone. Until Stiles saw him with his own eyes and could poke the body, he didn’t believe that Derek hadn’t died that day in the preserve.

“Here we go,” Mr. Robertson said. He opened the door and stepped back to let Liam and Mason pull the drawer out.

Cora whined high in her throat and then froze, staring at her brother. Stiles stared too.

Derek still looked dead, his face more peaceful now than any other time Stiles had seen it. His chest was devoid of any wound. Stiles leaned forward, and Scott’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

Liam stared at Derek and then turned to Scott. “He’s alive,” he said. “His heart is beating.”

_“I told you,”_ Lydia said, annoyed, glaring at Stiles. “I never screamed for him. I told you that he wasn’t dead, but none of you listened to me.” Quieter, she said, “If Derek were here and it was Stiles lying there, he would have believed me.”

She threw her hair over her shoulder, stomped forward, and pressed a dry kiss to Derek’s forehead before she left.

The growl from Cora was not unexpected. Her turning on her heel and stomping after Lydia was.

As soon as the double door shut behind her, Stiles pushed forward, grabbing Derek’s cold hand. He rubbed it, trying to let the warmth seep from his skin to Derek’s. It did not help.

Scott took Derek’s other hand.

“Stiles, give him some time. We only just found out he was still alive.”

“And how did that happen? Did you finally listen to Lydia?”

Scott’s face darkened slightly, and he nodded toward the doors. Stiles whirled around, only to come face to face with the same dark spark that had killed Derek.

“You!”

“Me,” the spark said, smiling benevolently at Stiles. “A pleasure to meet you, Stiles. My name is Conner Merchant, from the Eastern Greenwich Village Consortium of Witches.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Stiles observed. “Why are you here? Why is Derek still alive?”

At that, Connor’s face fell. “Well, he’s not fully alive yet. He’s healed, don’t worry. But, alive? No. more like in purgatory.”

“Why are you here?”

“Aside from telling you how to resurrect your werewolf?”

“Resurrect? You’re the reason he’s like this!”

Conner sighed, rubbing at his temples. He snapped his fingers and a chair materialized next to him. Mr. Robertson stared at him while Mason stammered out an implausible explanation. Stiles did not miss that part of his job at all.

“Derek Hale may be in a coma-like state thanks to me, but I was not the one who decided what to do. That would be my coven leader.”

“And where is your coven leader?”

“Back in Greenwich. She sent me in her stead to care for the Nemeton.”

“Lies,” Stiles spit. “You were here to attack it.”

“You think every magical being that crosses your town line only wants to attack you or the Nemeton.”

“That’s because they do. Every single time someone Supernaturally inclined ever visits this town, they all try to siphon power from the Nemeton or kill us all. And you’re no different. Just look at Derek!”

“And because of that, the Nemeton needs more help than it’s getting. So, it’s stealing it. From a bond so secure that even when it’s stressed, it doesn’t break.”

“A bond? What bond?” Stiles looked at Scott, who shrugged. He turned back to Conner. “My bond with Derek? The Nemeton is affecting it?” Was that why the anger just kept welling up, why every time he wanted to apologize first, to tell Derek he loved him, he could only scream his hatred? The Nemeton taking the love they felt for each other and twisting them into something dark and evil, like the Nogitsune all over again?

A small voice inside Stiles said, “Derek never stopped loving you.” And hell, it _was_ the Nogitsune again because Stiles…Stiles had not felt like himself for a long time, longer than he’d been staying at his dad’s.

Conner took his hesitant silence as disagreement and snapped, “Ugh, fine! Just kiss him. Then you’ll see I’m not lying!”

“A kiss? You think a kiss is going to make all of this better?!” Stiles slammed his hand down next to Derek’s head. Because he was watching to make sure that he didn’t actually hit Derek, he saw Derek’s brow furrow when his hand made contact. He didn’t wake up though. Subdued, Stiles added, “This isn’t some damn fairy tale.”

“No,” Conner agreed. “It’s a fucking nightmare. Just kiss already so that the Nemeton can start healing.”

Stiles stared down at Derek, eyeing his mouth. It had been four weeks, one month, since he last kissed Derek. And maybe Derek hadn’t always _said_ that he loved Stiles but he’d certainly showed it.

And if Derek woke up, even if he remembered how horrible Stiles had been to him, then it was worth it.

Scott clapped his shoulder and stepped back, leaving him alone, like he wasn’t already so very much alone, fighting another battle when he couldn’t see his attacker.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered into Derek’s hair, chasing the scent he’d grown to need as much as air. Derek didn’t smell much like himself, too earthy and not enough salt. And he was still cold.

Stiles turned his head, lying cheek to cheek. “I love you,” he whispered. Then, he turned back and gently, gently pressed his lips to Derek’s, holding the kiss for nearly half a minute, trying to talk without words because words hadn’t ever worked between them, not when they were both hurt and lost and being manipulated by a damn tree.

Just when he started to pull back, Derek gasped into his mouth, a breathy whisper, a soft “Stiles” floating between them. Stiles pulled back far enough to gaze down on Derek’s fond smile and open eyes.

“I love you,” Stiles said, carding a hand through Derek’s hair. “I’m so sorry. I love you. Always. Always.”

Derek coughed, cleared his throat, and sat up, reaching for Stiles almost before he was fully upright. “I love you too. I’m sorry I don’t say it enough. I mean it though. I love you so much.”

Stiles buried his face in Derek’s neck, inhaling deeply. He still smelled wrong, too much like medicine and the hospital, but his skin was warming now, and Stiles still fit against him.

Unbidden, the ring box came to mind, and Stiles dug it out from his pocket, surprised to find it. He must have shoved it there when Scott called earlier.

He popped it open and showed it to Derek. “The answer is yes,” he said. “The question is will _you_ marry _me_?”

Instead of answering, Derek slid one ring onto his finger and then held the other out for Stiles to take.

The second kiss was less desperate but no less passionate and full of sorrow and forgiveness.

“Well, that’s it,” Conner said, interrupting the kiss before it turned too much like a promise and less like a greeting. “The Nemeton is starting to heal again. Thank you. And you’re welcome.”

He disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Mr. Robertson stumbled to the chair, sinking into and mopping at his balding head. “I need to lay off the sherry,” he said, dazed.

“Yes, that’s it,” Mason told him. “Too much sherry. We’ve interrupted your drinking time. This is all a hallucination. Thank you so much, Mr. Robertson. Don’t forget to drink some water. Your liver will thank you.” He pulled Mr. Robertson up and led him from the room.

Liam made a face. “We probably should have kicked him out, yeah?” he asked.

Scott shrugged. “Sometimes, it’s better for curiosity to have someone spreading rumors that are a little farfetched. Besides, you heard the man; he imbibed a bit much and hallucinated the whole thing.”

“Pretty sure you can’t just hallucinate that a dead body came back to life,” Liam said. Scott grabbed him in a headlock and dragged him out too, Liam still protesting.

“Let’s get you back home,” Stiles said, tugging at Derek’s arm until he slipped off the metal slab, clutching at the sheet draped over his body. “We have a revival to celebrate, Fiancé.”

“You’re not mad at me anymore?”

Derek held still while Stiles scrutinized him, searching for what, Stiles couldn’t say, only that the hurt look Derek was trying to mask was more telling than the painful beats of his own heart.

“I don’t know what came over me, and I am more than sorry that I let it happen. Derek, you wrote me a dozen or more letters. You have a ring for me. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for not listening when you were telling me that you loved me.”

“I only started saying it now,” Derek admitted, and Stiles shook his head.

“Every time you did something for me, every time I did something for you, that was us saying ‘I love you.’ And I shouldn’t have pushed for you to verbalize it. I knew deep down that you did love me, but I guess I needed to have validation.”

“And I should give you validation,” Derek said. “I’m glad that I can say it out loud now. I thought maybe if you realized just how much I love you, how long I’ve loved you, you would be terrified of it, of me, and not want to be with me anymore.”

“Never, Derek. I will never not want to be with you.” Stiles wriggled his ringed finger. “You can’t get rid of me now.”

Derek smiled, dipping his chin low, a sign that he was amused and delighted. “I wouldn’t get rid of you ever,” he said softly. “You’re mine and I’m yours. Forever.”

Forever sounded perfect to Stiles.

~ Fin ~


End file.
